WORCESTER – The City of Worcester’s License Commission meets on Thursday, June 30, with an agenda that includes licenses transfers for new ownership of O’Connor’s Restaurant at 1160 West Boylston Street.
Brendan and Claire O’Connor opened O’Connor’s in 1989, after immigrating a year earlier from Ireland.
In a phone interview on Sunday with ThisWeekinWorcester.com, Brendan O’Connor said he has worked five to six days, and 50 to 60 hours a week, for over 30 years. Now, at 67 years old, he said he’s ready to step away from work and spend time with family.
While the O’Connors are ready to step away, O’Connor said Sunday that it’s been difficult to get out of the business. Following the sale of the business, O’Connor’s management and staff will be kept, and O’Connor will stay on for an interim period during the transition to new ownership. He said the restaurant’s staff members “were so loyal to us” during the COVID-19 pandemic, that it’s important to him that their jobs continue after he has retired.
The business seeking the transfer of the licenses on Thursday, Carlow Clove Inc., was registered as a Massachusetts corporation in December. It is registered with Kyle and Dennis Gray Maxwell of Marlborough. The buyers of the business are the third generation of their family in the restaurant business, according to O’Connor.
O’Connor said there is a possibility the transfer of licenses gets pushed back to July as the deal to sell the restaurant continues to be worked out.
